4 runners were transported to hospitals during the CCC Cross Country Championships at Wickham Park

MANCHESTER — Four athletes, two of whom lost consciousness, and an adult were hospitalized with heat-related symptoms during a cross-country championship at Wickham Park on Wednesday afternoon, and the fire chief said that he was never made aware of the event and that the lone athletic trainer there "became overwhelmed."

The chief, David Billings, said he had been given no notice of the Central Connecticut Conference cross-country championships, which were held on an unseasonably hot and humid day.

He also said that, in years past, race officials also have contracted with the Ambulance Service of Manchester to have an ambulance on scene during the meet, but did not do so this year.

"The heat and humidity caught them off guard," Billings said.

Meet director Mike Cohen, who coaches the Simsbury High boys cross-country team, said that the humidity probably caused the issues more than the heat and that the usual safety protocol was in place for the meet, which drew 31 schools and about 1,000 runners.

Cohen said that protocol is to have one trainer present and one ambulance on standby — not at the field.

He said Betty Remigino-Knapp, the athletic director for West Hartford's two high schools, tried to contact another trainer to be at the event, but that the second trainer couldn't come.

In total, four athletes and one spectator were transported to various hospitals for heat-related injuries, Billings said.

He said two of the runners had asthma conditions that were aggravated by the heat and humidity. The other two showed symptoms of heat exhaustion and complained of difficulty breathing and nausea, he said.

"This all happened when they came across the finish line," he said.

Billings said that two of the runners fainted, but regained consciousness fairly quickly.

Several ambulances responded to emergency calls from officials at the meet.

Billings, who took over the fire chief's job a year ago, said that his department had received no advance notice of the race and had no personnel on scene before receiving the first emergency call. "We were not aware of the event ahead of time so we did not have advance notice," he said.

Remigino-Knapp said she was not aware that she needed to notify Billings, adding that she was concerned that the chief was confusing the CCC meet with the Wickham Invitational or a CIAC meet, which are larger events.

"They are absolutely correct, they did not know that we were there," Remigino-Knapp said. "We were never told that we needed to do that."

"They just said that in the future they would like us to [give advance notice]," she added. "We're not negligent. We will [coordinate better] in the future.

Cohen, who has been the meet director for five or six years, said he believes reasonable precautions were taken for the meet. "Would I like to run a race where a single kid doesn't go down? Absolutely," he said. "But we want to take reasonable precautions. … If that means we call an extra ambulance, we call an extra ambulance."

"We did have extra ice and some extra water," Cohen said. "I don't think anybody envisioned that you would have as much of a problem as we had. We did go through all the ice that we had. I think next year depending on the weather we may take some extra precautions given what happened this year. At this point in the season, you wouldn't expect to have this kind of a problem at the championship."

Asked if extra precautions should have been taken, he said: "It wasn't like it was a triage situation where you had scores of runners going down. You had some kids that had some difficulty during the race, no question. We'll look at it; we may have to add more trainers."

David Skoczulek, director of business development and community relations for the Ambulance Service of Manchester, said an initial call came in at 3:31 p.m. and that five ambulances were requested and four responded to heat-related injuries.

Skoczulek said that the group has contracted with the meet to provide ambulance services on scene during the race in the past, but was not asked to do so this year.